The bill would more than double the amount of money the federal government forks over to states for foster care reimbursement each year. Even worse, this bill would remove the only small brake from what is less a runaway train than a lumbering foster care steamroller that crushes better alternatives for children.

As we have stated numerous times here at Health Impact News, we agree with the late Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer that the current system of Child “Protection” Services and foster care is too corrupt to be reformed, and needs to be abolished.

Allowing states to collect more federal funds for foster care is moving in the wrong direction, and could lead to an increase in child sex trafficking. See:

Federal Legislation Would Take Last Brake Off Foster Care Steamroller

Remember all those celebrations when the vastly overhyped Family First Prevention Services Act made it into law? Even some of those who realized the bill didn’t do much thought that at least Congress finally got it — at least they understood that having a huge open-ended funding “entitlement,” known as Title IV-E, that can be used only for foster care is bad public policy.

As Jerry Milner, associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services put it last year:

I’m not wedded to the entitlement for the very simple reason that the only thing that Title IV-E right now entitles anybody to is a foster care payment. Parents aren’t entitled to a darn thing. Families are not entitled under Title IV-E to get the services they need to live together safely under the same roof as a family unit.

But never underestimate the ability of the foster care industrial complex to worm its way back into Congress’ good graces and undermine real reform.

I don’t know exactly how they did it, but they’ve fooled a couple of Democratic senators, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, into proposing legislation that, in what is reported to be its current form, would wed Congress more firmly than ever to an open spigot of foster care spending.

Rep. Karen Bass, California Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, plans to introduce the same bill in the House.

The bill would more than double the amount of money the federal government forks over to states for foster care reimbursement each year. Even worse, this bill would remove the only small brake from what is less a runaway train than a lumbering foster care steamroller that crushes better alternatives for children.